Marquez: Honda "in a good place" after Jerez test

Marquez ended the test second-fastest, only beaten by fellow Honda rider Takaaki Nakagami, with his new teammate Jorge Lorenzo also making it inside the top four.

The 25-year-old praised the amount of work his team covered during the day, and feels Honda is looking competitive.

"I think we are in a good place. About the second day [at Jerez] I'm very happy, because maybe it was one of the best days of the pre-season," Marquez said.

"[On Wednesday] we worked good, but also for physical condition I was not ready because I was sick. Today I felt better, so I was able to work in a better way.

"We try a lot of things, we get a lot of information about everything, about engine, chassis, electronic, even the tyres.

"We concentrate all the day with the medium rear, hard rear even that nobody use, just to understand, just to prepare the next season.

"In the end it was a good day for us and happy on the way that we are working."

Marquez explained that the biggest change on 2019-spec Honda is the engine, but having only one new bike available "limited" his work.

"Chassis is very similar, the biggest difference is the engine, it's still where we have some new evolutions and we are trying to work, to understand," he said.

"When you get a new engine, you need to adapt the electronic side to that character of engine.

"We have only one [2019] prototype, and you have a kind of limitation during all the day and you cannot take a lot of risk, because if you crash you lose all the day because you have one bike."

While Marquez said after the opening Jerez test day that he hadn't spoken with Lorenzo yet, he said he had a brief chat with the Honda newcomer on Thursday.

According to Marquez, the two of them had similar comments on the bike. In addition to that, he confirmed that Lorenzo also had the new Honda available.

"I found him this morning having breakfast at the hotel and we talked for two minutes," said Marquez. "He says that little by little he is getting the hang of it, which is normal with a new bike.

"More or less we agree in the same comments about where the bike needs to be improved. He is with a prototype, too. He is trying the [same] things."

Lorenzo ended the test only 0.160s adrift of Nakagami's pace, and Marquez said that Lorenzo is also strong on race pace.

"It's true that one thing is one lap, the other thing is the rhythm," he said. "[On] one lap after two-day test, everybody was very fast, the laptimes are very tight, but on the race pace is where I feel strong - and he's also working in a good way.

"This is important also for Honda, have two, three fast riders because also today Nakagami was very fast."

Additional reporting by Jose Tamajon